Greetings from Dharamsala

Hello!

I'm now in sunny Himachal Pradesh province in India after an eventful week in Pakistan. On my first day there I helped with a bake sale at a local school where my friends are working and met many people and had an interesting time playing Dutch games and trying Pakistani food. It was well into the 40's and we were grateful for plenty of shade! On the second day we saw some sights around the city, before I was cruelly hit by a dose of food poisoning. After a day of evacuating frequently from both ends I was completely dehydrated, and couldn't drink at all without it returning shortly after. A quick visit to hospital for an IV drip and a good sleep got me over the worst of that one. The Lahore hospitals have a very open door policy and you just wander in, find a nice doctor and then a nice nurse hooks you up. It was good to have a lie down and read a good book after that. After several days in bed we saw an amazing old fort in Lahore on the Friday before cycling off on Saturday, just one day behind the original planned departure. The traffic in Pakistan has been great fun to watch and ride in, and the 'me first' mentality is a strong one throughout much of the country's operations. It was a very informative week as Tom and Adine have some good friends in Pakistan. Adine has done 9 months of hard work training teachers in speech therapy in a school for mentally challenged children. She seems to have learnt a lot about Pakistan and about herself too! A good challenge for Tom to help maintain her sanity I think :)

My health has improved tremendously since last week, to the point that we have now cycled 260km in the last 4 days. The last 30km was all uphill and we are now in sight of the Himalayas! They are massive mountains towering in the distance, all covered in snow. It is so good to be here, and within a small number of kilometres from the Dalai Lama too. We'll go visit him tomorrow for a nice chai latte.

Tom's knee is holding up well and we have been taking it slowly, especially up the hills. The food here has been amazingly good, just as I'd hoped, and almost all vegetarian too. Especially now we're in the more Buddhist area in the mountains. A very multicultural place.

It has been incredibly hot, and we have been drinking enormous quantities of water and still are not peeing! Stopping at a roadside stall for an ice cold lemonade or mango juice and water has been a highlight in itself! The people are very hospitable. We have some very mountainous days ahead, but a relatively easy day tomorrow. Just a 9km ride up a hill tomorrow to visit the main man Lama (without luggage!) for the day, so will be a nice easy one. It's great to be where the air is cooler, and we can really feel the difference from the plains. We are now at around 1300 metres.

We plan to go on a 5 day trek after we've cycled about another 250km to Manali. Then we'll be seriously getting some altitude as we approach some major mountains.

Cheers,
Michael